


Now I Know

by azulaahai



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Divergent AU, F/M, Fluff, angst with happy ending, direwolves, jon meets alayne
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 04:50:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13159641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azulaahai/pseuds/azulaahai
Summary: When a stranger clad in black steps into the inn at which she's staying, Alayne has a strange feeling that she's seen him before.





	Now I Know

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the gotsecretsanta event on tumblr for @queensansaofhousesnark. Mild angst, hah, happy ending.

She doesn’t know him instantly. 

Snow’s been falling all day. After hours of Alayne shivering from the cold, lord Baelish finally agreed to seek shelter in a roadside inn, and it’s lucky that he did - a fullblown storm is raging outside now, wind howling. Winter has truly come. Alayne feels somewhat hollow at the thought.

The inn-keep fidgets nervously as she asks if the food was to their liking. Perhaps she is unaccustomed to the company of nobles - there can’t be many travellers in early winter’s unreliable weather. Alayne shoots her an encouraging smile. The inn-keep does not return it.

And then the door flies open, causing the inn-keep to spin around and Sansa to turn her head. Ice-cold winds enter the room through the open door - three men, all clad in black, step over the threshold. Brothers of the Watch. What brings men, however dutiful, to travel the roads in a snow storm? Alayne eyes the strangers with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion as the inn-keep fuzzes over them. Lord Baelish remains quiet, but Alayne has learnt to read his silences. This one is tense, unpleasant.

The strangers are seated and Alayne discreetly tries to get a better look at them. At one of them, in particular. A thousand years ago, she had known a boy who went north to join the Watch. And now a stranger in black has stepped in and looks just like him.

At first, she is certain her mind is playing tricks on her - that she sees his likeness because she wants to see it. But the sense of recognition not only remains but increases as they eat. The dark curls and broad shoulders - not entirely the same but oh so familiar. Could it be?

Could it truly be?

She doesn’t know him, no, not instantly, not for certain.

But when lord Baelish, somewhat annoyed at where she is directing her attention, reaches out to speak to the brothers in black - when the stranger turns his head and for a moment meets her gaze, Alayne comes to two realisations.

The first is that she knows him then, knows him now, knows him, knows him.

The second, when his expression remains stern and closed and she looks down, her cheeks heating;

_He_ doesn’t know _her_.

Why would he? He never knew Alayne.

***

He doesn’t know her at first.

A raven-haired beauty, with bright eyes. It should be impossible, really, to have such dark hair and such light eyes. She refuses to meet his gaze after that first eye contact and Jon does not wish to bother her, far too busy with avoiding to answer her father’s inquiries.

A bastard daughter, she is introduced as. Jon feels for her. A lord’s bastard is no easy role, he knows from experience. But there is something else that irks him about her - a strange familiarity to the way she strokes her hair back and lifts her cup to drink. It unsettles and confuses him - he feels as though he’s trying to remember a dream he once had.

That … unfamiliar familiarity is so queasy, in fact, that Jon can barely stand it, rising to go to bed almost immediately after finishing his meal. Lord Baelish looks at Jon in a funny way, seeming irritated. His daughter - was it Alys? Alayne? - tenses beside him, but still does not look up at Jon. Jon’s glad for it - still troubled after that initial eye contact. He bids them all goodnight, relieved at the prospect of solitude.

But a strange feeling lingers in his stomach - a strange sense of regret as he exits the hall.

As if he’s left something behind.

***

He dreams vividly, strangely, tossing and turning, bright eyes haunting him through his sleep. Those eyes are not framed by raven black in his dreams, but by auburn locks.

And in his dreams, those eyes do not belong to Baelish’s bastard.

***

The storm has stilled during the night.

Jon’s up at first light, eager to leave the inn and the bright eyes and the sneaking suspicion that he is missing something, something significant, behind. Neither Baelish nor his daughter is anywhere to be seen as Jon breaks his fast, and he is nothing but grateful for it. He has other things to keep his mind occupied - no need to trouble himself with bright eyes that he feels as though he’s seen before.

His men lag behind, tardier than usual, probably uneager to leave the warmth of the inn behind and continue their journey in the biting cold. Jon, annoyed at their slowness, braves the thick layer of snow outside the door, heading towards the stables.

Ghost is already awake, naturally - he’s always grumpy and restless whenever Jon leaves him locked up in a stall. The wolf looks at him with reproach in those red eyes of his as Jon lets him out, the horses trampling nervously as they hear Ghost moving. Jon can’t blame them - a direwolf in a foul morning mood makes quite a frightening picture.

When he hears the stable door open, Jon whistles to call the wolf closer to him - his men are used to Ghost, but there’s no need to challenge fate. Jon’s just about to remark on how late the men are, when he sees that it is not one of them that has entered the stables.

It’s the bastard girl.

“Good morning”, Jon greets her, that dizzy, unsettled feeling returning with full force. 

“Morning”, she repeats, her voice barely louder than a whisper. Still - something in that voice - he’s heard it before.

“Alayne, was it?” Jon asks, when the silence has lasted a second too long. She just stands there, a few steps from the door, looking down at the stable floor. Is she waiting for her father? Baelish hadn’t even broken his fast when Jon left. 

“Yes”, she answers, with the same low, frail voice. “My name’s … Alayne.”

“Well, I’m Jon.”

“I know”, she says, quickly and louder than before, before blushing and turning her eyes even further down into the floor. She lifts her hand to put a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. Seven hells, that gesture - he’s so certain he’s seen it before.

“You know”, he finds himself saying before he knows it, “you remind me of someone.”

“Oh, do I?” she says, that subdued voice back, her posture tense. Jon’s spooked her. He’s a bloody fool, is what he is.

“Trouble is …” - seven hells, he’s still talking - “I can’t seem to remember who.”

“That’s strange”, she says, almost whispering now. Jon falls quiet. Silence spreads through the stable. The girl soon lifts her head, but not to look at Jon - her gaze is locked behind him, at Ghost, who’s busy sniffing something outside one of the stalls. Jon’s surprised to see no fear in the girl’s eyes as she watches the wolf - only sorrow, something akin to grief. Strange. For a second Jon thinks she might start weeping - a sudden urge to comfort her strikes him.

“You like wolves?” he says, trying to keep his voice soft. A foolish question. Still, the girl replies politely.

“I …” Her voice is trembling. “Yes, I do.”

Jon calls out to Ghost. The wolf’s normally not keen on being patted like a lap dog, but Jon hopes he’s ready to make an exception for this odd, half-crying bastard girl that Jon hasn’t, yet is absolutely sure he has, seen before.

Ghost looks up at his call. Jon is just about to say something more - later he’ll be unable to recall what - when the wolf lets out a sound between a yelp and a howl, and sets off towards the girl, passing Jon in half a heartbeat.

By the gods, he’s going to kill her - Jon barely has time to think, panic rising within him. He desperately calls Ghost back, but the wolf takes no heed, and Jon watches in horror as he runs up to the girl. She doesn’t back down - why she hasn’t run out of the stables screaming yet is beyond Jon - as Ghost reaches her, halts abruptly before her feet, and -

\- begins licking her face, like a puppy.

The girl has begun weeping for real now with heavy sobs, but she isn’t crying, Jon thinks with amazement, in terror. She seems to be weeping with joy, braiding her fingers into Ghost’s snow white fur, the wolf standing still like a statue over her, protective.

_What in all the seven hells -_

Jon walks up to them, hesitant. Ghost turns his head to look at him, as if urging him to do something, though Jon can’t for the life of him understand what.

And then the girl lifts her head from where she had buried her face in Ghost’s neck, tilting it to look up at Jon. Finally, finally she meets his gaze with those bright eyes.

Bright eyes he has seen a thousand times before.

And then he knows her.

_"Sansa?”_


End file.
